Minister for Health and Social Development Carvin Malone has refuted claims that suggest that his government has been picking on bars within the territory.
The claims followed the recent development where two bars on Tortola were recently issued two $1000 fines for breaches of the COVID-19 protocols and ordered to close.
He said, “We’ve had to issue two fines and the bars are saying that we picking on them. We’re not picking on them really because if we have 200 people and a crowded space you picking on yourself. Because it is only in those circumstances that particular officials are lending themselves and opening themselves to all forms of challenges that will attain.”
Minister Malone also said the bars who are in breach of these protocols are to blame for any repercussions suffered as the atmosphere within these establishments are key to COVID-19 spikes in the territory.
“But when you’re done you go back home. Your kid go to school, your wife or husband go to work, you go to church, you go to all of the unsuspecting places, the persons who then did not know what attained because if we’re going to have the number of people being identified only when they’re traveling, people identified as a contact of traces and people identified in terms of local cases then we have issues,” he explained.
“We reported just not long ago that we had the MU variant. Other places in the Caribbean are saying that they have the Gamma variant. So the fact is that the more you allow this virus to actually stick around especially in the unvaccinated persons, the more it mutates. So it’s going down the Greek alphabet,” Minister Malone added.
284 News broke the news last weekend where it was reported that a bar in Sea Cows Bay and another in Paraquita Bay were each fined for breaching social distancing COVID-19 protocols.
According to the Chief Environmental Health Officer Lionel Michael, these two bars which were ordered to close as a result, would have to undergo training, new implementation measures and inspections before being allowed to reopen.